If you and I
Had wings to fly—
Great wings like seagulls’ wings—
How would we soar
Above the roar
Of loud unneeded things!
We two would rise
Through changing skies
To blue unclouded space,
And undismayed
And unafraid
Meet the sun face to face.
But wings we know not;
The feathers grow not
To carry us so high;
And low in the gloom
Of a little room
We weep and say good-bye.
BEFORE WINTER
The wind is crying in the night,
Like a lost child;
The waves break wonderful and white
And wild.
The drenched sea-poppies swoon along
The drenched sea-wall,
And there’s an end of summer and of song—
An end of all.
The fingers of the tortured boughs
Gripped by the blast
Clutch at the windows of your house
Closed fast.
And the lost child of love, despair,
Cries in the night,
Remembering how once those windows were
Open and bright.
THE VAULT
AFTER SEDGMOOR
You need not call at the Inn;
I have ordered my bed:
Fair linen sheets therein
And a tester of lead.
No musty fusty scents
Such as inn chambers keep,
But tapestried with content
And hung with sleep.
My Inn door bears no bar
Set up against fear.
The guests have journeyed far,
They are glad to be here.
Where the damp arch curves up grey,
Long, long shall we lie;
Good King’s men all are they,
A King’s man I.
Old Giles, in his stone asleep,
Fought at Poictiers.
Piers Ralph and Roger keep
The spoil of their fighting years.
I shall lie with my folk at last
In a quiet bed;
I shall dream of the sword held fast
In a round-capped head.